This invention relates to recording weighing scales of the type which are intended to weigh successive items, such as grocery items, provide a visible output on the scale of the weight of the item and the price per unit weight for that item and once the scale mechanism comes to balance with the load, to provide a total value indication together with a printed ticket or label which includes the total value, the price per unit weight, and the weight of the item. Such recording scales are per se well known, a typical one being disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,557,353.
In that scale, a set of manually rotatable control knobs provides the input for a price per unit weight factor. Where recording scales are used in certain grocery or delicatessen operations requiring frequent changes in the price per unit weight entry, it is sometimes more convenient to utilize a keyboard input device for entering the price per unit weight factor, and such an arrangement is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,741,324. The scale shown in that patent can readily be utilized in conjunction with a printer mechanism to provide a printed ticket on which is recorded the weight, price per unit weight, and value, in much the same fashion as the typical ticket disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,557,353. It should be noted, however, that not all ticket printers print these three records simultaneously, and in fact it is quite common in connection with the type of scale shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,741,324, to utilize a printer which prints a narrower ticket with the weight, value, and price per weight, printed in sequence on the ticket by a single array of type in the printer.
In certain grocery operations, items are sold by the unit, i.e., by the bag or by count or by the piece, and often such scales may be made from the same place where weighed and computed items are sold. It is therefore, desirable to outfit the recording scale in such an operation with a means for producing a record, such as a ticket or label on which only the selling price of the particular item is printed, and to do this in such a way that the operator experiences little change in the normal routine followed when the weighing and computing function is utilized.